Chael Sonnen's first pick for TUF 17, Luke Barnatt, is blogging over at Your MMA. Dubbing himself 'The European Gangster', Barnatt has long been known as an interesting character on the UK MMA scene. However, now he gets international exposure with The Ultimate Fighter.

He also gets the first fight post-eliminations after a good win in the first episode.

Stay tuned to his blog. He doesn't hold back, it's a great read! Some of his nicknames for the other contestants include 'Wifeless Wonder', 'Serial Killer', 'Mr DOuchetastic' and 'The Jamaican Spider Monkey'.

The American Gangster won the coin toss (obviously) and he decided to pick the first fighter. Being British I expected Chael to look the other way when it came to the name Luke Barnatt. I expected him to look at someone like Jimmy with exceptional wrestling credentials rather than a lanky British white boy! But in fact he saw the inner gangster in me.... and made The Bigslow the number one pick for TUF 17.

Then everyone else got picked... who really cares in what order? Only number and last place matters... so me! and then Dylan Andrews was the scraps left over that little JJ had to pick up. A 16-4 vet who has fought the likes of Brian Ebersole was left for last place... which was pretty astonishing! But when you think a British 5-0 badass who has only been fighting professionally for about 1 year was picked first, then you know it’s all fucked up!

The guy Luke is fighting is a tank but he is very short... I don't think it was a smart matchup by Jones to be honest, I think they just picked Luke because he has some damage on his eye but I can see him keeping the Mike Tyson look-a-like at range and picking him apart from the outside.

Someone with the build of his opponent can be susceptible to gassing, Chael picked Luke because of his conditioning. I think this is an easy fight for Luke on paper, I'll see if I'm right in a couple days, lol.

"Jones had stated earlier that he would put Gilbert against someone with good stand up and not so good takedown defense.

So what I’ve taken from this is, although Jon Jones has built his whole UFC career on the fact that he has the longest limbs in the UFC, he decided to put Gilbert (5’9”) up against The British Badass himself (ME!) who is 6’6”, because he feels I have 0 takedown defense even though I’m more like JJ than any other contestant."

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